This project would not be possible without the unwavering support and concerted efforts
of the following contributors.

Jeffrey Keil

Wharton Class of 1965 and Library Board Overseer. Mr Keil embraced this project from the outset and funded its realization.

Dr. Michael Ryan
and Stefan Reif

Dr. Michael Ryan, former Director of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Penn and Professor Stefan Reif, former Director of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Unit at the Cambridge University Library, originally conceived of the idea of partnering to link Penn and Cambridge’s fragments and served as the Directors of the project.

Former Curator of the Schoenberg Center for Electronic Text and Image, Mr. Bear managed all of the intricacies of coordinating the scanning operation with the project catalogers. He and his staff worked in close partnership with Mr. Ellis Weinberger and his colleagues at Taylor-Schechter who were engaged in scanning and cataloging Cambridge University’s fragments. Mr. Bear and Mr. Antonio Vivas creatively pioneered the development of the initial interface and the display functionality.

Mr. Seth
Jerchower

The project would not have succeeded without Mr. Seth Jerchower, CAJS Public Services Librarian and Judaic Research and Instructional Services Librarian at Penn who partnered with Ms. Heidi Lerner, Hebraica Cataloger at Stanford University, to adapt the MARC format as the uniform standard for encoding detailed codicological and paleographical descriptive metadata. Mr. Jerchower played a key role, working in conjunction with Ms. Katherine Schultz of Penn’s Information Processing Center, to find ways to use MARC-Edit to convert cataloging information into a machine-readable format. He oversaw the quality control of the scanning of each leaf, making sure its foliation and direction was accurate. He also handled all public service contacts relating to the contents of the site and updated records as new information became available.

Ms. Heidi Lerner

Ms. Heidi Lerner, Hebraica Cataloger at Stanford University, ensured that the bibliographic descriptions adhered to the local and national cataloging standards that were used and adapted for this project, established authoritative records for eighty-five plus new names that uniquely appear among the cataloged fragments and contributed them to the Library of Congress' Name Authority funnel. She worked with Mr. Jerchower to adapt the MARC format as the uniform standard for encoding detailed codicological and paleographical descriptive metadata. They delivered a number of public presentations about the project and have published a valuable study of its innovative features. See: Heidi Lerner and Seth Jerchower. "The Penn/Cambridge Genizah Fragment Project Issues in Description, Access, and Reunification" in Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 42:1 (2005), p. 21-39.

Dr. Ezra Chwat

Manuscript Bibliographer, Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts at the Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem, worked as the project cataloger. Dr. Chwat’s expert knowledge and meticulous scholarship achieved a new level of full and bibliographically complete cataloging.

Ms. Naomi
Steinberger

We are particularly grateful to Ms. Naomi Steinberger, who as Acting Director of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, endorsed the methodologies underlying this project and agreed to contribute to the project scans of the Seminary’s exceptionally rich Elkan Nathan Adler collection of Genizah fragments which matched Penn’s fragments.

Mr. Dennis Mullen

SCETI Web Designer/Developer. Mr. Mullen took over many of the responsibilities for managing the initial SCETI Genizah site after Mr. Bear left the library. Along with programmer Panayatos Tomakos, Mr. Mullen is responsible for the design and implementation of the current online interface.

Mr. David McKnight

The succeeding Curator of SCETI, has ably and conscientiously shepherded it to completion. Among the support staff who have worked on this project, we specifically would like to mention Margaret Graham, SCETI, Metadata Specialist; Andrei Dillon Soares, SCETI metadata entry assistant.